There is, I think, considerable collective pride regarding the SDMB’s ability to asnwer factual questions - and I think in general, that pride is reasonable, however, there are Some General questions where the wrong answer stands a chance of prevailing - at least for long enough that a one-question-then-gone OP might go away misinformed.
Examples? Of course. Here are a couple (I’ll dig out some links if anyone needs them):
**Questions along the lines “Is this food still safe to eat” **will often be answered to the effect “if it smells OK, it should be fine”, which is just wrong (the things that make food stinky are not all dangerous and the pathogens that make food dangerous may not stink)
Questions about biofuels will sometimes get an early response to the effect that they can’t possibly be energy-effective because the second law of thermodynamics means you can’t get out more energy from the biofuel than you put into the tractors used to harvest it/machines used to process it (I hope I don’t have to explain why this is wrong)
Anyone else noticed this? Any other examples? (NB: remember, I’m talking about GQ)
There is a problem with Internet Explorer on my computer. This most often gets answered with “Switch to Firefox” or even “Switch to Mac” which I think are both very bad answers. Even if the user does eventually switch to Firefox, that doesn’t change the fact that something in their computer is corrupt/broken and should be fixed.
I have personally found that if one has a question specifically for the GQ users about their experiences with a subject remotely resembling anything which has recently been discussed in Comments on Cecil’s Columns the question will get jerked from GQ to Comments on Cecil’s Columns and one may never see a reply related to the question.
I can’t recall the last time I moved a question from GQ to CCC. If you have that problem, and would prefer that the question remain in GQ, I would suggest e-mailing a GQ mod and ask them to leave it in GQ or move it back.
Lots of things. Information about non-North American and European nations and cultures. Pretty much anything on Islam, muslims or related issues has never seen a correct answer.
Crikey - that’s worse than I thought - all the examples I can think of only have a tendency to attract the wrong answers, but you’re saying there are GQs that have never been answered correctly?
I think that, like most people with some expertise in some area, questions in my own area are so overwhelmed with half-right answers, irrelevancies, or overly simplistic factoids that any real answers from people who know what they’re talking about tend to get drowned out. But that’s what you get at a place like this, where anyone can post. It’s not a big deal to me.
Well perhaps I would like to rephrase that. I have never seen a a thread on Islam, Arabs or muslims end in anything but turmoil and seldom if ever have I seen what I think is the right answer.